Caked in bloody fluid, innocent flesh wiggled it’s way out of the constricting canal. Calloused, leathery fingers gently, but firmly grasped the matted, black hair and twisted the head back and forth to aid his arrival. With lungs bursting full of fluid, the newborn fearfully gasped to fill his chest with his first breath. Fear. For the first time, fear had overwhelmed the tiny form, a completely foreign feeling. Wails of a baby’s first cry filled the square, adobe-like walls, as anxious bystanders peered over the worn mother’s limp shoulders to a… Read More

Caked in bloody fluid, innocent flesh wiggled it’s way out of the constricting canal. Calloused, leathery fingers gently, but firmly grasped the matted, black hair and twisted the head back and forth to aid his arrival. With lungs bursting full of fluid, the newborn fearfully gasped to fill his chest with his first breath. Fear. For the first time, fear had overwhelmed the tiny form, a completely foreign feeling. Wails of a baby’s first cry filled the square, adobe-like walls, as anxious bystanders peered over the worn mother’s limp shoulders to a… Read More

Have you ever fallen in love and become so passionately in love with the object of your desire that you want to mingle all of you with all of them? This is the essence of sexual attraction right? When we fall in love we desire to be one with our beloved. We want to connect fingers, toes, lips and every part in between to our counterpart in such a way that the line between us and them disappears. That is the consummation of intimacy. Recently, not for the first time I heard Bethel’s… Read More

Have you ever looked out of an airplane window and marveled at how small the people, cars and buildings are down there. In fact, it doesn’t take long to get high enough that you can’t make out the people at all, even though you are still well within the atmosphere of the earth. When I was young, on one of my first flights, I quickly took this revelation of my smallness and expanded on it to think, how small I am from the perspective of space, just outside our atmosphere, and then… Read More

Aimlessly, I wove in and out of the rows of rose bushes in one of the grandest gardens in our country, the Biltmore Gardens. A dear friend, who breathes flowers, trees, and anything green, had tagged along, as I had invited her to join my family on our afternoon excursion knowing how much it would bring her joy. My hopes had been that the roses would still be in full bloom, but they had begun their seasonal dying off process. Instead of vibrant pinks, yellows, reds, and fiery oranges, fading colors with… Read More